I hope that everyone would read the May 14, 2014 Final Report of the Ventura County Grand Jury on “Firefighting Air Assets: The Camarillo Springs Fire.” We don’t hear much about the availability of our firefighting air assets these days. In view of the predicted “worst ever” fire season, this issue is a matter of life and death. The complete report can be viewed below.

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Speaking of the website, we’ve notified everyone of the new “pay-wall” system. No doubt many long-time viewers will be irritated to find that the news we have worked so hard to gather online each week for the past 8 years or so can no longer be offered free of charge. We are dealing with the same problem every newspaper in the country is dealing with, that is: how is it possible to print a newspaper to sell at a small price, while at the same time giving away the product of our 7-day-per-week efforts FREE of charge online? Answer: It’s not possible. The great difficulty is designing a system to sell the news online and make the process as easy to use as a print subscription.

We have finally done that. All subscribers to the Gazette’s print edition will continue to receive the printed newspaper as usual, and have access online as well. Online readers can access our online edition by subscribing by the month or by the year with our quick and easy subscription system. Just subscribe once and you’re good to go.

The online edition of the Gazette, www.fillmoregazette.com, has become such an important means of providing news of our city, instantly when necessary, that we want to keep it healthy. That means that it can only continue as a subscriber-funded medium – just like the paper. We hope all of our readers understand and continue to support it.

Ventura County Grand Jury Report: Firefighting Air Assets: The Camarillo Springs Fire by TheFillmoreGazette